Mussolini declared war as France was already collapsing

Mussolini declared war with France already on the ropes

Why does a country enter a war when the side it is joining already has victory in its pocket? On 10 June 1940, at around 16:30, Italian Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano handed the British ambassador Loraine and the French ambassador François-Poncet Italy's declaration of war in person. France was about to capitulate to Germany. And the formal note was a three-paragraph bureaucratic screed: Mussolini saved the rhetoric for his balcony speech in Piazza Venezia.

What Italy's declaration of war on France and Britain said

The text Ciano placed in the hands of Loraine and François-Poncet contained no statement of reasons. The declaration was so terse that it got by with a “from twelve o’clock on the tenth, we are at war.” The reasons, the hour of destiny, the irrevocable decisions and the rest of the repertoire were saved for the square. That is why the document barely appears in popular timelines: there is no epic to index.

The underlying problem is that Italy entered without Germany offering it anything or pressuring it. The war was considered already won. And the Italian merchant marine, according to figures in circulation, was not warned in time: it was exposed from day one.

The Alps, Greece and Africa: the three unnecessary fronts Italy peine

In the Alps, the French army stopped the Italians. A country about to surrender to the Germans held back the Italian onslaught at the border. Then Mussolini invaded Greece without telling anyone, and the Greeks wrecked the operation: Hitler had to go rescue him and invade Yugoslavia along the way. And in Libya, British General O'Connor wiped out the Italians, forcing Rommel to be rushed in to save the situation.

The bill is measured in other people's divisions. The Italian front ended up being held by ten German divisions under Kesselring against thirty Allied divisions. The most repeated calculation suggests that, without that front open, Britain would have had more ships to carry supplies to the USSR during Barbarossa, more aircraft to harass German territory, and convoys sailing through the Mediterranean instead of going around the Cape of Good Hope.

Gibraltar, Franco and the price Hitler refused to pay

Why didn't Hitler invade Spain to take Gibraltar? There were serious plans: Operation Felix, with von Richthofen at the bridgehead and two army corps lined up. What was never there was the will to pay the price. Franco was not just being capricious: his list of demands was French Segarro, Oran, wheat, oil and 15-inch artillery. Hitler, with the mud of Russia on his mind since July, would not pay that even for the toll to Suez. And Canaris was secretly tipping Franco off.

The Spanish dictator's achievement was recognizing that Hitler's war was not his and negotiating without giving him reasons to invade out of spite. That does not make Gibraltar a key piece: Hitler cared rather little about it in October 1940, with Mussolini invading Egypt and the Mediterranean considered closed.

What would have peine if Italy had stayed out

The counterfactual scenario does not say Germany would have won. It says the process of its defeat would have been different. British strategy was the same as always: blockade the sea, sustain a continental ally and wear down the enemy. Every Italian front Germany plugged was a resource that did not reach Russia.

Hitler and Mussolini, by the way, shared a trait that now reads as a red flag: neither of them drank. The 20th century's teetotallers proved costly.